[b.a.p] banghim in the rim: a predebut story -2

[haneyon]

There are things you can't fight. Acts of God. You see a hurricane coming, you get out of the way. But when you're in a Jaeger, you can fight the hurricane. You can win.

-Raleigh Becket
   Gipsy Danger, PPDC

*

Yongguk wakes in a cold sweat, staring up at the ceiling where his brother's bunk isn't. He closes his eyes again, slowing his breathing. Words echo in his head, dark and displaced.

"I'm done."

"Nam, but don't you want to-not everyone gets to be someone, you know. Not everyone gets the chance to make a difference…"

"Jaeger pilots don't retire, Guk. They die. None of them have lasted more than two battles yet. You… you can take the fame and heroism. I don't want it. I don't want any of it. I just want to live a normal life."

"But what's even normal with kaiju at our gates, Nam? What the hell is normal anyway?" Yongguk's tongue feels thick and heavy.

Yongnam doesn't quite look back over his shoulder as he heads out, as he turns away and returns to Seoul. "I don't know. Maybe you can find out. You should follow your dreams, Guk… but those dreams aren't mine."

"Hey," Himchan says, quiet, and Yongguk almost starts. It's funny-(not really)-he's not usually one to fuss in his sleep, but he knows he's been restless. He eyes the way Himchan watches him and doesn't want to ask how much he betrayed, but Himchan's eyes aren't worried-just sympathetic and understanding. It's enough. It's nothing Yongguk wants.

He rubs at his face and gets out of bed, leaving the room without a word.

*

"When this is over," Himchan says over lunch break, final week of first trimester, as if it's even started at all; as if it's even close to ending-it's not and he knows it's not but sometimes he just feels like deluding himself into thinking otherwise. What kaiju? What war? He isn't aware. What he doesn't know can't hurt him. "When we're all done here, I want to go back to Shinjuku for crepes."

"Shinjuku… Japan?" Yongguk raises a brow, metal spork halfway raised. He's eating… something. Himchan can't even tell. Yongguk cares so little for food sometimes he just shovels nondescript chunks of it so systematically into his mouth that he might as well be shovelling dung into compost. Watching this perturbs Himchan on a fundamental level. Yongguk says, "But you can get crepes anywhere."

"Not just anywhere, Bang Yongguk," Himchan says with reproach, a little sharper than intended but it can't be helped: he's perturbed. "Not just any crepes. It has to be Marion Crepes at Shinjuku. If you haven't been before, I'll take you. I'll even pay, first time. I went on exchange to Japan a while back, you know? Our Air Force has a sister academy…" He changes tack: "When we get our own jaeger, let's apply for transfer to the new Tokyo Shatterdome. It'll be finished by then. I don't want to stay in Alaska any longer than I have to."

Yongguk turns this thought over in his head while Himchan happily ignores how very far they still are from getting their own jaeger: two trimesters and a stable drift away. "It would be closer to family, I guess," Yongguk says at length.

Himchan laughs. Family. Seoul. "Oh, right. I don't care about that so much. But I do know a bit of Japanese and it'd be nice to, you know, have access to decent food." Himchan likes decent food. He likes decent food a lot. Unlike Yongguk.

"Rations are rations," Yongguk tells him as if 'nutritionally balanced' and 'convenient' means the same as 'actually delicious' (it does not). "Tokyo Shatterdome will be the same as Anchorage, just maybe less cold."

Himchan rolls his eyes. "Yes, but outside the Shatterdome, Bang Yongguk. Remember that thing called 'life' we're supposed to enjoy? Think about it: you leave base and instead of becoming a bear popsicle, there are humans and weather that isn't utterly despicable, and you get to go for ramen, chirazushi, donburi, hamburger…"

Yongguk just shakes his head. "You're such a first class idiot."

"You just don't know how to appreciate the good things! The good and simple things!" Himchan frowns, accusing, and jabs his spork at the air in front of Yongguk's chest, right over where his heart would be if he cared at all.

"I like good and simple things," Yongguk shrugs, scooping up more mash. Eating it somehow. "I like ramen. Food of the gods."

Himchan considers this deeply before coming to a decision: "No. If you're just talking about the instant just-add-water shit, then I am unsure the two of us can continue this partnership, science or no."

Yongguk laughs. "Ramen is ramen. I guess we might as well all go home."

"Pack your bags, Bang Yongguk," Himchan says imperiously. "I want you out of my room by dawn!"

*

'Home' is such a strange and imprecise word though.

Himchan isn't sure he really likes it.

*

Second trimester, teaching hour 002.

Two common setbacks that can lead to a lack of compatibility are (a) judgement, including the fear of such; and (b) lack of control of memories that jump to mind during the drifting process. The "modesty reflex" is considered non-conducive to creating a connection. PPDC psychologists suggest that embarrassment based on sexual memory is the biggest reason algorithm paired trainees cannot sync together.[7] Trust is an implicit part of creating a strong bond between potential partners. Familiarity with a partner makes fostering trust easier where it may be more difficult between strangers. Without trust, the Neural Handshake cannot succeed.[6]

*

The first time they drift isn't exactly a dismal failure, though it also falls short of a glowing success. They manage to align their minds in fifty-five-point-oh-eight seconds-reasonable for a first run-but for some reason Himchan hangs on the notion of home and Yongguk's phrase, I guess we might as well all go.

Go.

Home.

There's something nebulous about it that distracts him, and Yongguk remembers his brother with an unbidden jolt of regret. Himchan responds in kind with the bizarre recollection of telling his sister to shut up and sit down-I refuse to consider us related as long as you still look like that, okay? So stop telling people we are!

It's a strong memory that floods Yongguk with guilt and shame, both from Himchan's emotions and Yongguk's own at having seen something so clearly personal. It's disquieting. A disconnect warning sounds over the training Conn-Pod's speakers and immediately Himchan hauls his mind back into focus, memory vanishing, but it's already too late. His own annoyance and discomfort floods the drift, muddying its waters. Their bridge is shaky, connection tumultuous. Yongguk tries to ignore it all and just breathe, but it's difficult with his pulse racing and cheeks hot. He wonders if Himchan's reactions are always so intensely physical like this. He wonders how Himchan handles it. He hopes he's not going to sweat up a waterfall-the Conn-Pod's confines are sealed and not entirely pleasant.

It's an arduous fifteen minutes until the exercise is done, their connection maintained for long enough that the instructor calls them out of the mock-pod and orders her next pair of trainees in. Himchan emerges looking more haggard than Yongguk's seen him the entire physical element of first trimester. Neither of them says a word and it's not long before Himchan leaves the training room first. Yongguk lets him go.

"I'm sorry you had to see that," Himchan murmurs to the ceiling later that night when Yongguk finally makes it back to their room. Yongguk glances over his shoulder, shrugging out of his uniform jacket, an unvoiced question on his face though Himchan isn't looking. "I made it up to her afterward, you know. My sister, we're cool now, I just…"

"You just can't control your mouth for shit, can you," Yongguk says. It's a statement of fact. A definite fact. He tugs his shirt off over his head.

"Yeah," Himchan sighs heavily, scrubbing his hands over his face. "Yeah, that's it, pretty much. It's been bigger than I can handle all my life and I've been trying, but… now you know I'm a horrible person. I'm sorry."

Yongguk shakes his head. He kind of wants to laugh but Himchan looks like a kicked puppy so he doesn't. Not this time. "I knew that from the start though, you know. You're the worst. The biggest idiot-"

Himchan glares over. "Hey-!"

"I mean… I thought you were."

"Thought?" Himchan presses up in his bed. "What do you mean 'were'?"

Yongguk shrugs. Smiles a little. It feels right to smile here, now. "I had thought you were shallow. Vain. Stupid. But you proved me wrong."

"You can say that after seeing inside my head?" Himchan says, eyes narrowed. "I mean it's not like I meant to hide anything, I just thought I'd have been able to have better control, and really I should have, but I just-"

"Hey, no. Just shut up," Yongguk says as gently as he can, hitting the light switch and feeling his way over to his own bed. He's kind of tired. Half from the drift and half from the run he had to take himself on afterward to shake the feeling of it-the feel of Himchan all through his mind and under his skin, buzzing, talking, buzzing, buzzing. "It's okay. I didn't catch that much… and anyway, even if I did… you know…" He turns over to face the wall. "It's nothing too crazy."

More than the foreign memory itself, Yongguk can recall the deep flood of regret that had accompanied it and he's willing to bet nobody feeling that wretched over a misstep can be truly unforgivable. And anyway, he kind of likes Himchan and his gut isn't usually wrong.

"…thanks," Himchan says into the darkness.

"Don't sweat it, Himchan," Yongguk murmurs. "Goodnight."

*

Yongguk comes out of their fourth drift laughing. He doesn't mean to-it just happens.

He finds it addictive, the out-of-body kind of experience that drifting is-the initial rush, falling back through time-space and consciousness and into the flow of it all, free like the wind, his mind and Himchan's slowly-albeit still awkwardly for now-melding into one. Unfettered.

"Two pilots engaged in neural bridge, thirty-two-point-two-six seconds," says a voice over the comm. Yongguk recognises it. Recognises that he recognises it. Acknowledges this fact and lets it go. Acknowledges their improved time from yesterday and lets it go.

He thinks staying in the drift is a bit like meditating. Focus on nothing. Just let it flow by.

The nose of an aircraft rises in his mind, cruising mid-altitude above the clouds and Yongguk knows the vision is from Himchan's dreams. Yongguk's never wanted to fly like this-not mechanically-but apparently Himchan has. One day echoes in the headspace between them. The plane leans into a barrel roll and then pulls up into a corkscrew. One day… and Yongguk realises then that there is no canopy, no equipment, no nothing.

Putting two and two together, he begins to smile. He feels Himchan's brief confusion-very brief before Himchan himself is amused, the mental laughter contagious. I like it when you're happy, comes the thought-an impression more than articulated words. I like it when you smile.

Yongguk is still grinning when they disconnect, his amusement spiking on the session's drift recording but nothing their supervisor cares about enough to point out. It's not like Yongguk had been thinking about sex.

"What is it?" Himchan queries, digging through his training duffel for a bottle of water and a handtowel to wipe his face with. "You were so happy in there, it was…"

"Weird?" Yongguk supposes with a chuckle. "I just realised… you said you were with the Air Force…"

Himchan's ears go immediately red. "I was with the Air Force."

"You said you flew planes…"

Himchan pouts through the flush on his cheeks. "I did fly planes."

Yongguk shakes his head, still grinning. "You're unbelievable, Kim Himchan. I really still thought on some level that maybe you'd…"

"What?" Himchan tosses the waterbottle back into his bag, crossing his arms with a mightily unimpressed frown. "What did you think, huh, Bang Yongguk?"

"With the Air Force, you might have…" Yongguk trails off, unsure what he wants to say. The jaeger's neural bridge interface had originally been adapted from cutting edge pilot-to-fighter jet technologies. Yongguk had thought on some level that Himchan may have had some sort of undocumented training experience, maybe having worked with such systems before. But the plane that had risen in their subconscious hadn't been a fighter jet, or even a manned plane at all-just a MUAV, a surveillance drone controlled from the ground.

Yongguk shakes his head and can sense Himchan's hackles rising at the sight of his lingering smile. "No, it's nothing, Himchan. You're just something else. Is all."

"Of course I am," Himchan huffs, slinging his towel over his shoulder and stalking off. He'll be using the shower first but it's fine. He sweats more than anyone Yongguk has ever seen. "I'm one of a kind, you know, and you're lucky to have me."

"Yeah, yeah," Yongguk laughs, hands in his pockets as he jogs to catch up. "I know."

*

Second trimester, training hour 098.

Another day, another drift simulation. "Himchan, stay with me," Yongguk orders, low.

Himchan frowns but his relief is palpable when their impromptu overrides work and the mock-pod's Heads-Up Display flickers back online. Yongguk feels it flood his core as Himchan says, "Ha! As if a little damage is going to throw me."

Yongguk mentally rolls his eyes as together they fight to re-balance their jaeger from her fall in the shallows off Northern Queensland. Moderate damage. Vents back open. They've tried this run before. The kaiju they want is somewhere in the water, but they have to be careful where they tread and where they lead it. The simulated Australian government will kick up a fuss if too much of the Great Barrier Reef is damaged by Kaiju Blue-one ill-picked fight among the coral will shoot their Politics and Collateral scores to shit. Yongguk feels his heart hammer as they scan every shadow in the water around them and knows the feeling is Himchan's again. Chickenshit, he thinks.

Focus, Himchan's thought rings right back, as if he's got room to talk. Yongguk's spike of amusement once again makes Himchan smile, and Yongguk thinks he likes how it's a trick that never fails to work. No seriously, focus, Himchan thinks, though his husky laughter rings through their headspace. We're on record here. Don't be embarrassing.

Oh, don't be embarrassing, Yongguk chuckles. What great counsel from the master himself. He can't help the smile playing at his own face. It's pretty stupid. The timer's ticking, the kaiju are coming, their training is being graded and they have ocean liners to protect, coastal cities to save from destruction, natural national treasures to safeguard from alien contamination…

Absolutely no time to fall in love.

*

An odd turning point comes one night at three in the morning. Himchan finds himself still awake, unable to sleep, nerves buzzing. He thinks it might be one of those residual drift hangovers the old hands talk about-the lingering mental connection with a co-pilot even after stepping away from all the equipment. Especially lately, he and Yongguk have just drifted so much…

He doesn't need his Krav Maga dreams anymore now that he and Yongguk have proven compatibility, now that Hana's team has their data, now that he's actually in Yongguk's mind anywhere from eight to fourteen hours per training day. He knows Yongguk's next moves better than anyone now that they're half his own.

Now Himchan's only still in the Jaeger Program for himself.

It's odd-he only technically signed up for the first and second trimesters, study parameters, this and that, but he thinks that if he and Yongguk don't get dropped he wants to try make it through to the end. Third trimester is clocking time in an actual, live jaeger out on the proving grounds. If they really do both have the skill to make it, Himchan thinks he'd like to follow through. Even if it means continuing to train as crazily as they have for the past thirteen weeks pretty much indefinitely… Even if it means their odds of survival are… well, Tacit Ronin's lasted four battles now. That's something, isn't it?

Yongguk isn't sleeping. Himchan knows this. He nods to himself. "I think I want to be a jaeger pilot." He says it into the dark, black as pitch. Definite fact. Yongguk can ignore him if he likes, or if he's halfway to dreamland, but the realisation is a marked one in Himchan's mind. They're in Alaska. Kodiak Island is in no way a holiday destination and yet Himchan wants to stay. He might even consider calling a Shatterdome home.

Yongguk frowns up at the bulkheads above and squints his tired eyes. He does this and somehow Himchan knows it. "You think you want to be a jaeger pilot. That's nice. Since we're more than halfway through the course and scoring pretty well, too." Dry humour.

It's a valid point, Himchan will agree. Nobody in their right mind signs up to the Jaeger Program without wanting to pilot. It's gruelling. It's break-neck. It's fundamentally stupid. There are other streams entirely for the likes of J-Tech and LOCCENT Officers, Kaiju Science, each equally essential to the cause…

"Well, initially I was here because I had a point to make. Bones to pick," Himchan explains. He feels like he should, now, somehow. He wants Yongguk to know about every scornful word ever thrown at the fat kid, at the nerd, at the useless Air Force posterboy. He kind of wants Yongguk to remember asking who Himchan'd fucked for what he had-jokingly, but still. There's a beat of silence. Yongguk waits. Himchan says, "Of course, I always thought piloting a jaeger would be nice. Getting to tussle with a kaiju and maybe come out alive, like. How many people can actually say they do that, you know? But now that the possibility's here… I mean, we're drift compatible, you and I. We could actually pilot a jaeger… it's… weird. And I kind of actually want to." He laughs, a little helpless. "It's your fault, I swear. Help me, Bbang. I think I've fallen for your whole Save the World shtick! It's a contaminant!"

Yongguk bristles. Himchan feels it. Hears it in Yongguk's voice and feels it in his own spine somewhere between the amusement and the bone-white vertebrae: "It's not shtick."

Himchan grins. "That's what you think."

"That's what I know."

And there's the conviction, Himchan thinks, that he'd seen in that mugshot on day one-the mettle he'd agreed to sign with when Hana had first shown him Yongguk's photo and together they'd chosen this path. "Yeah, see…" he says, "that's what's totally weird. You really just want to save the world. Like, you… you're actually that guy. It's bizarre."

"What's that supposed to mean," Yongguk grumbles, muffled like he's talking into his pillow, but Himchan can hear every syllable loud and clear. "I have a certain skill set. I'm in a position of responsibility. I just want to make sure I do my part."

Himchan can't help it. He grins. He starts to laugh. "Fame, fortune, every man and his dog affording you hero status, respect, free passes-just… everything you could have, and all you actually want to do is save the children…"

And there's a tickle in the back of his mind-a tickle of a frown that says Yongguk isn't sure why Himchan thinks this is funny. Himchan isn't really sure why he thinks it's funny-saving the children is very important business, of course-but he chuckles and sighs out his mirth and somehow in the darkness Yongguk doesn't actually seem to mind. That fact alone gets Himchan grinning all over again. Anyone else on base and he's pretty sure Yongguk would have found the noise intolerable.

It's progress. It's…

"Himchan… shut up. Stop thinking so much. Your tension's making it hard for me to rest," Yongguk sighs. "Just go to sleep like a normal person." But he doesn't sound angry-not even resigned. He sounds almost like he could be fond.

Himchan grins, delighted. "I would, but what the hell is normal anyway, you know?"

"Not you," Yongguk says back.

Himchan smiles. "Plus you makes two~"

Yongguk snorts. "Don't drag me into this, you loser."

Himchan laughs. "No, no, no~ but it's too late, it's too late."

*

Induction manual, page 17.

Very few who join the Academy ever make it past the first cut: Jaeger Academy trainers push candidates to breaking point, maintaining relentless tactics to exemplify the mercilessness of the kaiju the trainees may eventually face in battle.[2][4]

Students learn, among other things, the technical aspects of a piloting Jaeger and are constantly tested against their physical and mental limits. How much a student can remember, learn and maintain within a short period of time determines whether or not they will make the cut and become a PPDC Ranger.[2]

*

"Do you really want to do this?" Yongguk says, looking at the paperwork in his hands final week. Graduation week. They're still in the program. In three days, they're going to make it out the other side. The thought is surreal.

Himchan sits on the bed across their room and kicks absently at Yongguk's ankles. "Don't be stupid. Don't you really, really want to?"

"Yes, but that's… that's my dream," Yongguk says thickly. His mouth is moving but the words still weigh foreign on his tongue. "It doesn't have to be yours as well…"

Himchan regards Yongguk levelly for a long while before turning his attention back to the mirror that's by his bed where the old data monitor used to be. Ostentatiously, he fixes his hair. "As if this is something you can do without me, Bang Yongguk. As if you'd be able to leave me behind. As if I'd let you stand up to those nasty blue fuckers all by yourself, you know…" He pauses, dramatically dire: "You'd die."

Yongguk's mouth lifts in a half-smile. He hadn't really had much doubt about becoming a Ranger with Himchan by his side, not really, what with Himchan thinking of almost nothing but graduation in their final few weeks of third trimester, but the confirmation's still good to hear aloud in the actual air, away from the drift. Yongguk feels relief. There's room for amusement and it makes Himchan smile, his black eyes sparkling like starlights. Yongguk says, "You're still angry about them, I see…"

"I told you already," Himchan says, all shit-eating and free. "It's nothing crazy, Bang Yongguk. I just don't like bullies."

*

March, 2016.

Himchan and Yongguk become the Jaeger Academy's thirteenth ever graduate pair, and newly minted PPDC Rangers. They are the first pilots unrelated by blood or marriage-there are others after them, of course, rivals and friends and more, but for a short while they are a celebrated triumph of the R&D division and Jung Hana is pleased.

Fact aside the test results were inconclusive, pending data from more sample pairs. Fact aside dormant natural chemistry, high EQ and time itself could not be ruled out as major contributing factors to their success.

Himchan kind of likes to think maybe Hana can appreciate where they've come from and where they've managed to get-and maybe also the way he and Yongguk look in their new, full-dress uniforms, saluting the Marshall side by side at their ceremony.

After all, he knows she has a good eye and good taste.

A bit like himself, just quietly.

*

*

*

"Himchan, what are you doing?" Yongguk wants to know. He shakes his head to clear it as Himchan's steady stream of memories finally trickles out of their headspace. It's not a pleasant loss. The drivesuit's sealed mask feels suddenly crowded with his breath, the circuitry suit underlayer suddenly crawling against his skin from more than the Pacific Ocean waves lapping at their jaeger's legs outside. "We're supposed to be on standby, you idiot."

" 'Stop chasing all these RABITs,' " Himchan says in a mimicry of Yongguk's command tone: " 'We've got to keep our eye on the Miracle Mile. What if Ronin needs our help.' I know, Bbang, I know." A pause. Himchan grins. "But Ronin's just scanning out there and nothing's moved on the HUD in ten minutes… You've got to admit they were cute RABITs, right?"

"We're on record," Yongguk says, past the point of exasperation. Such feelings are wasted on Kim Himchan. "In case you've forgotten, LOCCENT is always monitoring our drift-"

"Hey, it's not as if I went all out and showed them a good time or anything, right?" Himchan says with a clear smirk, and it's a sudden acute struggle for Yongguk to not think about images unfit for observation.

"Stop that," he mutters under his breath. "Himchan, please."

Himchan laughs. "No mercy. Let's see who fucks up first."

"Warrior?" LOCCENT queries over their Conn-Pod speakers.

Himchan flicks the mic switch on the comm board. "What's up, LOCCENT?"

"We have a blip on the radar twenty-three kilometres east of Miyazaki," LOCCENT says and, as naturally as he understands it now, Yongguk still feels surprise at his own near-fluent Japanese language competence-another side-effect of having Himchan so frequently in his mind. "Category 2. Codename: Mitsukurina. Twin barbed tails. Fast. Tacit Ronin and Perfect Warrior strike group: orders are to hold the Miracle Mile. Ronin spearhead, Warrior support."

"Understood," Yongguk says.

"We copy," Himchan echoes and flicks the comm switch back off. His palms are sweating already, heart hammering. Yongguk's too, all Himchan's fault.

"Plotting intercept," Yongguk says, steadying his breathing. He brings the HUD back up before them. "We'll meet approximately eighteen kilometres east of Miyazaki."

"That's, what… eleven miles-ish?" Himchan says. "Still outside the Miracle ten."

Yongguk frowns. "Ronin won't intercept until nine."

"They said support," Himchan says, uncertainty churning under his ribcage, or maybe Yongguk's. There's turbulence in their headspace but nothing they can't handle. Nothing they haven't theoretically handled a hundred times before.

Yongguk makes the decision, Himchan agreeing before it's even voiced aloud: "We'll hold it at the ten mile line, strictly defence."

"Acknowledged," Himchan says and relays their intention to Tacit Ronin in quick Japanese.

Yongguk lets a half-smile curve his mouth. "Let's go."

Himchan's return grin practically lights up his helmet.

*

Daily Jaeger Digest-1 Aug, 2016.

Perfect Warrior debut (Y. Bang, H. Kim), supporting Tacit Ronin (D. Jessop, K. Jessop) vs Mitsukurina (CAT II).

Result: PPDC victory 2:53pm (TR 3rd kill, PW 1st assist) Miyazaki, Japan. Battle time: 29'12"…

Start.